


Wind Chill

by Rez (lo_rez)



Series: Short-form Sark [1]
Category: Alias
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-03-26
Updated: 2004-03-26
Packaged: 2017-10-02 00:19:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lo_rez/pseuds/Rez
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sark at Arvin Sloane's Yule Ball. Spoilers through 3x07, Succession.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wind Chill

**Author's Note:**

> The comedic _Thaw_ started life as a much darker story that I thought ultimately unsuitable for a holiday gift-fic. This is the original opening scene, unpolished, initially posted for an LJ fic amnesty.

There is what he wants and what he can have and he's baffled, still, by the discovery that the two intersect nowhere. He fastens another ruby stud into the crisp shirt-front, staring at his perfect blank of a face in the glass.

It's humiliating to find he's no different from any of the poor sheep he's herded to be fleeced or slaughtered. They all cry, and die, in the end, with nothing more significant in mind than their own small wants and needs. He fishes a cufflink out of the hammered-silver box on the mantel, frowns at it absently. It's larger than he likes, a heavy gold roundel stamped with the Eye of Rambaldi as a compass rose.

Two years. He's all grown up and the game's gone stale and what, really, has he achieved? Less than nothing. Humiliation's less abject than the truth; the truth is he's failed, by any measure he knows. Nothing to show, empty hands, no wonder Irina's found other allies more to her taste. He'd misjudged--badly-- his loving father's interest. And as for Allison--

He drops the cufflink back into its velvet bed. Arvin Sloane has the instincts of a pickpocket. No doubt these baubles once sat on his father's dressing table, probably in this very box. No doubt Sloane put them here in the hope that he'd react exactly as he has. He'll have to find replacements. The first guests are already en route.

He answers the chirp of the telephone with a soft "Yes?" And, after a pause, "Very well." It's ten o'clock and Sloane wants a check-in with Ushek San'ko's rent-boy, pimped out to a sometime ally with a penchant for bluebloods. He's never been entirely sure Sloane buys the story. Or San'ko, for that matter.

\--Mr. Sloane obliges us--in consideration of a debt, shall we say?--with a distinguished gathering in honor of the season. We send him Mr. Sark, in return, and the very best security money can buy, hm?

San'ko's charm fascinates him; there's nothing the man can't negotiate. With amusing consistency his opponents find themselves, when all's said and done, cutting their own throats, convinced they've got the best of the bargain.

\--You had a villa in Montreux, I think, Mr. Sark? Before the CIA took charge of your housing? Mr. Sloane's Geneva townhouse is inconveniently small...

A farce, stage-managed with familiar panache. Where are you, Irina?

He reaches impatiently back into the box, threads the cufflinks home, right hand first. It's late in the day to be choosy and he was never, in any case, susceptible to Arvin Sloane's brand of spirit-world sentimentality. Irina was what held him. She never said: Your father will know you when the time comes. That was his own wishful thinking, blessed by her glinting smile.

She only said: There is a plan. This ridiculous charade conceals something of great consequence. You have a part to play and it is important.

A simple lie, perfect for an arrogant, stupid boy. A cut that won't heal because he can't stop scratching at it. He grimaces, adjusting the final jeweled stud. Gaudy, overstated: what else, for a bloody Romanov?

She should have worn rubies, Allison, and danced with him tonight. Red was her color, he'd always thought, but in the end she'd preferred Will Tippin's blue eyes.

And what price guilt? He jeers at the expressionless pallor of the face looking back at him.

Fuck it. His teams are in place and working; arrival times are now being updated at five-minute intervals and his operations chief is in touch with the dozen or eighteen security details incoming with guests important enough to bring their own.

He straightens the perfect knot in the black silk tie, shrugs into the dinner jacket, stares for another moment at his reflection. There, Allie, he thinks. Something for you to unwrap, if you were here. Bow and all.

*

[end]

_March 26, 2004_


End file.
